Last update: April 9, 2023 | Reading time: 2 minutes

I have been using WD My Cloud to backup and store data files for almost 8 years. Today suddenly the device stopped working, it can’t boot, after several resets of the device and it still doesn’t work, so I decided to disassemble the device to remove the hard drive by hoping the disk drive still works.

Disassemble the device

I googled the most effective and efficient way to remove the hard drive without damaging the case. And I think this video is the easiest way to open the case. But instead of one, I used 2 cards on the left and right sides.

Mounting the disk

WD My Cloud uses EXT4 as a file format, so it is not natively recognized by the Windows environment. There is paid software that offers to read the Linux file system on Windows, but in my opinion DiskGenius is the simplest and most convenient. Many features are also offered, including data recovery and partition management. I use this software only to check if the hard drive is working properly. The free version of DiskGenius is only able to copy/move small files, you need to purchase the professional version to copy/move larger files from EXT4 disk.

And the savior is Ext2FsdWith this application, copy and move files from EXT4 file system without restriction. You can download the app here for free, although it seems to be an old app and hasn’t been updated in a while, but the app still works even on Windows 11.

Once Ext2Fsd is installed, the Ext4 file system will work as a native file system such as NTFS or EXFAT, you can use Windows Explorer to manage the files inside the EXT4 disk.

Hope this helps!